>Um. If we take the higher figure of 3,500 demon steeds, that's 3,500
>sentient sacrifices per year. In other words, depopulating 35
>villages. In 50 years, Sir Ethilrist would have had to feed the
>entire population of Sartar to his horses. Somehow, I think the sums
>don't add up...
Let's not muddy this up too much with logic:-) It won't add up any way unfortunately. Let's assume non-senient food sources. A tiger needs an average of 9 kg of meat a day according to : http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/panthera/p._tigris_altaica$na rrative.html. Now these things are way bigger than tigers but let's stick with that figure. There are 294 days in the Gloranthan year. That's 2646 kgs of meat a year per animal or 9,261,000 kgs of meat for 3,500. Say you could get 500 kg of meat out of a animal. You'd need 18, 522 animals a year to support these things. That's a lot of animals too. Pretty much none of the meat, etc. would go to humans either. You'd need a pretty big range to get that many prey animals.
>(would trollkin sacrifices count?)
Now we're talking! Cheap, ready food source. Kind of low grade, the better steeds still probably get humans and higher quality prey. Probably still a lot of slave trading going on. I think the best compromise is that for most of the year these critters eat grass taking after mama. Once a year they need a fix of nice sentient prey to keep that demonic edge. Most of them have to settle for trollkin which just barely takes the edge off their hunger. The higher status steeds get to chew on higher quality sentients. And during those periods when Sir Ethilrist is hiring out make sure you don't lose to his forces. They don't do ransoms in any cases except for the most rewarding captives. Everyone else stars as the main courses in the big victory banquet. I imagine Sir Ethilrist hires out a lot.
Of course this is the point where this discussion gets kicked over to the Digest.:-)
Oliver
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